EV Discussion thread

Netexporter

An interesting petrol/diesel/electric comparison test:

PETROL vs DIESEL (vs ELECTRIC!) – which is REALLY the cheapest? | What Car? (youtube.com)

michaels

Grumpy_chap said:

Magnitio said:

 It took her 15 seconds to plug it in when she got home. Myth busted.

I have often heard the claims about the very quick times to plug in and charge an EV.
I was never convinced prior to buying an EV.
I remain unconvinced even now that I have an EV and a domestic home wall charger.  It is still quite a faff needing to uncoil the cable, which needs to be straightened out somewhat ready for being put away after charging, point at the socket, wait for the socket to open plug in.  Similar rigmarole for unplugging.
And I need to do the charging more frequently than I'd need to take an ICE to the petrol station.
All in all, I reckon the time spent is about the same.  In some ways the EV is worse because I have to plug that in exposed to the elements whereas the ICE gets a nice big cover at the forecourt so shielded from the worst.

The only way I could see to reduce the time on plugging in and disconnecting the EV charge connector would be to just throw the lead down on the ground and leave it trailing after each use.  Still don't think I'd be as short as 15 seconds.

Obviously, we don't have to stand there for hours to charge an EV as some ICE-favouring commentators would suggest.  Nor do we really do fair justice by putting out faster than reality times for plugging in an EV.

That would be us and I would say 15s is probably at least 3x overestimate.  Press charger release whilst getting out of car, 1s at most, picking cable plug of the ground and putting it into the charger socket whilst already passing the front of the car to get to the front door - 2-3s, and about 2s to unplug and drop on ground and close flap in the morning, again when passing from the front door to the drivers door.

silvercar

michaels said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Magnitio said:

 It took her 15 seconds to plug it in when she got home. Myth busted.

I have often heard the claims about the very quick times to plug in and charge an EV.
I was never convinced prior to buying an EV.
I remain unconvinced even now that I have an EV and a domestic home wall charger.  It is still quite a faff needing to uncoil the cable, which needs to be straightened out somewhat ready for being put away after charging, point at the socket, wait for the socket to open plug in.  Similar rigmarole for unplugging.
And I need to do the charging more frequently than I'd need to take an ICE to the petrol station.
All in all, I reckon the time spent is about the same.  In some ways the EV is worse because I have to plug that in exposed to the elements whereas the ICE gets a nice big cover at the forecourt so shielded from the worst.

The only way I could see to reduce the time on plugging in and disconnecting the EV charge connector would be to just throw the lead down on the ground and leave it trailing after each use.  Still don't think I'd be as short as 15 seconds.

Obviously, we don't have to stand there for hours to charge an EV as some ICE-favouring commentators would suggest.  Nor do we really do fair justice by putting out faster than reality times for plugging in an EV.

That would be us and I would say 15s is probably at least 3x overestimate.  Press charger release whilst getting out of car, 1s at most, picking cable plug of the ground and putting it into the charger socket whilst already passing the front of the car to get to the front door - 2-3s, and about 2s to unplug and drop on ground and close flap in the morning, again when passing from the front door to the drivers door.

Tethered? Even so I would want to avoid a tripping hazard. 

JKenH

Following the recent YouTube video I linked from Richard Symons who was extolling the ability of the new Tesla Model 3 to add 200 miles of range in 20 minutes I was interested to see this article from Autocar investigating how fast cars really charge. I was quite surprised to see Tesla Model 3 LR (the subject of the video) at 13th in the list with a weighted avaerage charging rate  of 117kW and the Model Y way down in 23rd place at just 89kW compared with the fastest charging car, Porsche Taycan at 198kw. At 70% battery the new M3 LR charges at just 70kW compared with the Ioniq 6 which is still charging at 150kW. 

How fast do electric cars really charge?

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/how-fast-do-electric-cars-really-charge

JKenH

The latest registration figures are out today from SMMT and for BEVs they are disappointing with only a 14.7% market share. Given that one of the explanations given for December’s poor showing was that manufacturers were holding back BEV sales because of the BEV mandate I was expecting a significant rebound this month. 

Last year EV sales were driven by the fleet market but even if all the January BEV sales were by fleets this would only account for 23% of fleet purchases which I believe is significantly down on last year’s share.*

PHEVs on the other hand had a good month. 

I find it interesting that with only 14.7% market share so much of the SMMT’s news release is given over to BEVs. 

UK reaches million EV milestone as new car market grows

https://www.smmt.co.uk/2024/02/uk-reaches-million-ev-milestone-as-new-car-market-grows/

Edit: *just 8% of private new car sales and 18.3% of fleet business sales in January were BEVs. For 2023 as a whole the respective percentages were 8.8% and 29%. 

JKenH

I was going to say this as an edit but decided to go with a separate post.

I note the SMMT are now forecasting BEVs taking 21% of the 2024 UK car market but there is currently no sign of an upward trend in BEV demand. BEV sales (as a % of the total) remained flat through 2023 at around 16.5%. If anything the trend is downward with just 14.7% in January. To remove monthly variations I have just totted up the BEV sales figures for the last 3 months at 73,135 and compared them to Nov/Dec 22/Jan 23 at 88,954. As a % of total sales that works out at 16.6% for the current period compared to 22.1% for the same period the previous year.

While SMMT can’t bring themselves to acknowledge a downward trend, (in fact they are celebrating a rise in the BEV share of the fleet market y-o-y in January), they are pressing hard for more measures to stimulate demand. I think SMMT has been far too bullish in the past about BEV sales rather than acknowledging what has been apparent for some time that underlying demand for BEVs has reached its natural level. The energy crisis is behind us now, there are still huge tax incentives to move to BEVs for the business fleet market and likewise for individuals through SalSac and BIK yet demand is flat. Despite this they have supported the BEV mandate which is bad for the  British car industry they are supposed to represent. The rest of Europe isn’t doing this so why do it here?

Blaming the government and cutting VAT will not solve the problem. There are already huge discounts available on BEVs. UK car manufacturers have no chance of making any money selling BEVs in the foreseeable future and lumbering them with a £15k penalty on any shortfall, while all sounding very green, will only put money in the pockets of Chinese BEV manufacturers. 

MikeJXE

For me it's a no brainer

The more people that buy them (with home charging) the less there are in the market for one so sales should well go down. 

JKenH

It would be interesting to know what proportion of EV buyers in 2023 had previously bought a new EV. By buyers I am including those on SalSac schemes as well.

I also wonder what proportion of EV owners have solar panels. Having bought solar panels, for me, it was a natural next step to buy an EV. I have asked before - what are the drivers for EV take up? Owning solar panels and access to a SalSac scheme are probably two of the most obvious drivers. Once these markets are satisfied (saturated) what will be the next driver? Being concerned about climate change is another potential driver but probably not as motivating as a financial benefit. Otherwise that cohort would also be giving up their gas (and oil) boilers and cookers. 

I don’t know how natural gas compares energy wise but if the figure I saw quoted recently of one gallon of petrol providing the equivalent energy content to 40kWh of electricity is correct then with average domestic gas consumption of 12,000 kWh the equivalent amount of petrol would be 300 gallons or around 15000 miles in a modern petrol car or two years driving. I assume there must be something wrong with that calculation in which case someone will point it out. 

Anyone fancy doing the sums?

MeteredOut

I'm not sure you can correlate EV buyers with solar panel owners, since (even in these days of working from home) people are typically out during the day (when the sun shines). Even if at home, it still takes a decent sized solar array to fill a, eg, 75kWh car battery, even in summer.

If anything, i think it's more likely to correlate to those that have batteries, or those that can charge at home and can avail themselves to TOU tariffs.

ABrass

EV sales this year will probably be 22-24%.

Because if they aren't 22% then the government fines the car manufacturer.

The price of lithium has been dropping and global supply is going to increase by 40% this year. The price has already dropped to historic levels, down from it's peak at nearly 6x the current price. That helps to explain why battery prices have returned to their downward trend again.